Opinion Contributor

Climate alarmism: Using our fear of hurricanes

Hurricane Sandy has come and gone, leaving a path of destruction. More than a 100 people have been killed and 8.5 million lost power. Nineteen states from Maine to Tennessee were impacted, with deaths reported in 10 states. Widespread flooding and fires caused extensive damage in New Jersey and New York. More than two feet of snow fell in western Maryland, West Virginia, and parts of Tennessee. The power of nature in action is frightening to behold.

But some believe that mankind is now causing hurricanes, or making them worse. Former Vice President Al Gore warns, “Hurricane Sandy is a disturbing sign of things to come. We must heed this warning and act quickly to solve the climate crisis. Dirty energy makes dirty weather.” Activist Bill McKibben declares, “…what it means that we’re now seeing storms of this unprecedented magnitude. If there was ever a wake-up call, this is it.”

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These comments are an outgrowth of Climatism, the belief that man-made greenhouse gases are destroying Earth’s climate. The theory of man-made global warming claims that an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide is causing stronger hurricanes and storms, droughts and floods, the melting of Earth’s ice caps, and dangerous sea-level rise. Gore now paints the Halloween image of “dirty weather.”

Yet, carbon dioxide is only a trace gas in our atmosphere. Only four of every 10,000 air molecules are carbon dioxide. Mankind’s contribution in all of human history is only a fraction of one of those 10,000 molecules. Nevertheless, proponents of the theory of man-made climate change now claim that this one molecule was responsible for Sandy, a hurricane with a 1,000-mile diameter.

But hurricanes are the result of larger forces. Sunlight falls directly on Earth’s Tropics, where much energy is absorbed, and indirectly on Polar Regions, were little energy is absorbed. All weather on Earth, including hurricanes, tropical storms, tornadoes, storm fronts, and the jet stream, along with ocean currents, acts to redistribute heat from the Tropics to the Poles. Hurricanes are born in the Tropics, where water evaporates from warm oceans, forming powerful rotating storms. Earth’s rotation then bends the path of hurricanes as they move north from the Tropics.

Readers' Comments (97)

Climate change hysteria is merely the means for control freaks to achieve their political ends.

And their economic ends! - look at how many millions Al Gore has put in the bank by duping the gullible. Look at the Carbon Trading schemes, who's involved in them, and how they've positioned themselves.

Climatism? Very clever. Assign an 'ism' to a branch of science so that the ignorant, superstitious masses will believe that climate change is a political position, rather than an analysis based on a body of research. After all, there's a large percentage of our country that seems to base their decision making on primitive emotions, and they are the easiest for the conservative elites to control via their media machine and big-money 'religious' organizations.

For anyone who is not a scientist, but is puzzled by the continuous barrage of climate change denial pseudo-science that is referenced by conservatives (long after being debunked), I recommend a series on YouTube called Climate Crock of the Week. These explain not only the bogus science behind the deniers' claims, but also the massive money trail behind the effort to stifle discussion and action on climate change.

Getting scientific information from an electrical engneer casts doubts upon the validity of the information. When the author claims that CO2 is present in such a small percentage in the atmosphere and thus can not be a factor he loses all credibility.

You don't go t a proctologist for information about heat disease, neither should you depend on an electrical engineer for legitimate statements about the effects of CO2 on our climte

That superstorm that damaged New Jersey so badly for the first time in living memory? That wasn't about some major shift in our weather patterns! 'Course not! Whatever ave you that idea?

Settle down folks...this is business as usual.......... settle down.. Get back indoors ...... and please check for dead bodies before you begin pumpimg the water out of your house... if you still have one left.

50 years ago in school we were taught about the greenhouse effect and there was no controversy nor politics involved...the theory was valid based on good scientific principles. The politics of climate change goes both ways and there certainly is not a lack of hyperbole and fear mongering amongst the climate deniers. With warnings that addressing limiting carbon emissions will destroy our economy to being a secret agenda for socialist subversives or secret world conspiracies. Even when there is some external proof beyond the rhetoric the climate deniers rush in to make sure we do not make the mistake of believing our own eyes. Other effects of human activity were not challenged such as acid rain or ozone layer depletion. The change from fossil fuels would do so much.....it would create industries and jobs....it would reduce pollution even if global warming is not that important...it would reduce our dependency on an ever diminishing commodity which is becoming ever more difficult and expensive to find and process....drilling at home will only increase because the price of oil is high enough to make previously difficult oil profitable to get to therefore supporting forever a higher price of oil....being a leader of alternative energy would make us a leader again as we are losing the whole field to other countries who are more sophisticated in their planning and not blocked as much by big money influence and apocalyptic anti warming crowds...plus it would lessen the influence of our enemies who we enrich by buying their oil....so for all these reasons we should address our energy needs with the Sam enthusiasm as the Manhattan project or the moon mission...but later generations will blame us if w give in to the fearmongers who confuse the issues and exploit the inherent complexity of the subject to mislead and distract.

We need to restore the scientific method back to its proper place in research. Man's impact on climate is unknown - What we have now are highly speculative conclusions based upon woefully incomplete data and immature, flawed computer models.

In the realm of climate science, 'science' seems to have taken a huge step backwards to faith-based reasoning. It should be the nature of scientists to be highly skeptical and desperate for confirmation and proof.

The Michael Manns and Al Gores of the world more are far more religious zealot than scientist.

And, as always, follow the money. (and that especially includes the competition for grant dollars)

I was surprised to read on politico an article that was unbiased. It still amazes me that there are so many people that buy into this global warming crap. I don't have anything against a common sense approach to keeping the environment clean, but some of these wingnuts that want to stop using water because it may hurt some little minnow is absurd, as are many other examples that I have heard or read about over the years. Having people study wind power, solar power and the other ways to produce power in the U.S. or world is fine, but the gov't investing billions of our dollars is ridiculous, that's not what promotes peoples ingenuity, if they don't have anything invested in the research it's not as important to them. Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Ben Franklin etc., didn't get free money to make things. obozo has given away billions of dollars to companies that didn't have any skin in the game and appear to have been scams that took our money.

For you environmental wackos, get a life, use some common sense when campaigning for reasonable laws. So many of you go off the deep end on issues and lose any credibility when you rant and rave on those issues. You might find that more people will help.

"Nevertheless, proponents of the theory of man-made climate change now claim that this one molecule was responsible for Sandy, a hurricane with a 1,000-mile diameter." NO, actually, they did NOT say that...Sandy was made WORSE by climate change, which is talked about in this asinine article as if it was still just a THEORY. Good God what a moronic piece.

While everyone has an opinion, that certainly doesn't make them correct. I am amused, but not surprised that "deniers" of Climate Change are going to be coming out on any site that will allow them to post an article.

I can only suggest to research the author of any of these pieces, investigate their affiliation. Have they done any research on the topic of climate change or are they a member of the "talking heads"/pundit class?

The CATO institute is going to release a report shortly to push this same agenda - and it is one of the saddest attempts to push this same denial. You don't have to read or comprehend this entire report, just look at the attributions - are they current, are they peer review articles or are they opinion pieces, comments, responses to real research? Why would CATO care - oh yeah, Koch Brother's are the originators...so who would expect anything different - they consistently push an agenda to keep their benefactors rolling in $$$, which pays their salaries.

Did anyone note how Steve pitched his story: CO2 are tiny little particles that in the bigger scheme of all the molecules are insignificant. This is a bait and switch ( or the Michelle Bachmann talking point). But don't believe me - ask your physician if these amount of these tiny little molecules are significant to your own personal livelihood.

I won't change anyone's mind - and neither should this author's Op-ED or the upcoming "Addendum to the 2009 US Global Change Research Program. Facts and Science should drive this discussion, not Op-eds and misleading projects that ignore or cherry-pick information.

Large systems are difficult to understand but I'm thankful that climatologists worldwide are trying to explain the patterns and give us a glimpse of the source of the problems.

I'm very cynical of the author and republicans who continue to deny the patterns of change much less the source. While they all could actually be idiots, I tend to believe that they are driven by money, influence and power.

At the local level, I am seeing small changes in people and I live in a republican run area. It's slow, but I believe that this author along with all republican politicians (they tend to run as one nowadays) will soon be marginalized, isolated and left behind.

Although it would be impossible to find out, I would like to know what the stats would be on climatists if you eliminated those that believe in the "cures" to climate change regardless of whether it existed or not. It's very easy to believe something is true if you percieve it to be a means to the end you desire.

Yet, carbon dioxide is only a trace gas in our atmosphere. Only four of every 10,000 air molecules are carbon dioxide. Mankind’s contribution in all of human history is only a fraction of one of those 10,000 molecules. Nevertheless, proponents of the theory of man-made climate change now claim that this one molecule was responsible for Sandy, a hurricane with a 1,000-mile diameter.

Current C02 levels are at around 400 ppm. The author is correct about that. If c02 levels reach 1000 ppm then all ice on the planet will melt. Once it reachs 500 ppm we will be unable to slow the increase in time to stop a major civilization altering climate change from destroying about 90% of the world's largest population areas. Nearly every major city on Earth is on the coast.

The igonrance of the author is astounding. I bet he also doesn't believe that germs can hurt you because they are so small.

I seriously can't even argue with people this stupid. Climate change is real and having a "100 year" evironmental disaster every 2 years now should probably be a wake up call to even the most inbred, racist, conservative yokels in America.

STEVE GOREHAM is paid to create these "opinions" by corporations who have an interest in seeing us NOT deal with climate change. What is next? Are we going to start showing opinions on whether the world is really flat or not? Steve, why don't you go get a real job that doesn't focus on preventing people from destroying the planet?